Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak briefly on this Bill. The purpose of the Bill is to extend the emergency period specified in the Planning and Development, and Residential Tenancies, Act 2020 until 12 July 2021 while recognising and balancing the constitutionally protected property rights of landlords. While that is welcome, many people will be asking why we do not apply such legislative imagination to introducing more robust protections around evictions generally. We have a situation, and I have raised this a number of times, where vulture funds are running riot in this country. Those vulture funds have questionable business models which, in my mind, do not constitute a fair and above-board business.

This needs to be looked at. I raised the forced sale of farms. There have been calls to deal with this matter since 2018, yet the issue is still going on.

Getting back to the Bill, I recognise that the Residential Tenancies Act 2020 provides, with limited exceptions, for a moratorium on evictions taking place during a period of a 5 km travel restriction and during the ten days following the lifting of any such restriction. The Minister will be aware that organisations such as Threshold welcome section 1 of the Bill but that they have concerns about section 2 and its application. I ask for that to be looked at.

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